RIPPLE'S CEO Brian Garlinghouse has revealed the secret behind the surge in XRP value as speculation mounts over Amazon using the cryptocurrency on an exchange created by the commerce giant.

Ripple and other cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin were the hot topics of conversation among bankers and politicians at the Davos World Economic Forum in January. Yet the talk of regulation led to a fall in the price of cryptocurrencies.

Now Ripple's CEO Brian Garlinghouse has suggested working with regulators could be key to the popularity of his cryptocurrency.

Mr Garlinghouse said: "The excitement around digital assets is because you are solving a real problem and what I think you saw happen is that there is an understandable concern about regulation. What does that mean for digital assets?

"From the get-go Ripple has worked with regulators and we have worked with regulated institutions like banks where there isn’t regulatory uncertainty.

"We have found that a part of the reason XRP has performed well is that people realise that if we work with the system to solve this problem there’s a lot of opportunities to create value in XRP."

Experts have previously linked the decline in crypto prices to increased pressure from global regulators on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Mr Garlinghouse insisted there is a lot of “misinformation” surrounding cryptocurrency regulation.

He told Bloomberg: "I’ve kind of jokingly suggested when people talk about regulatory uncertainty, it’s often people don’t like the regulation. They’re not actually regulatory uncertainty.

“If you think about the XRP transaction from one regulated financial institution, a bank or payment provider – they’re doing what’s called a KYC check which references ‘know your customer’.

From the get-go Ripple has worked with regulators and we have worked with regulated institutions

Brian Garlinghouse

“There is a global regulatory framework around KYC. That's at both endpoints of an XRP transaction, into and out of.

“So I think the regulatory certainty is actually much better than people think than people realise. It's just educating banks, regulators about how it actually works.”